wish to see how I and hundreds of thousands like me spend our time after work is over, you have only to come into the nearest public and let me drink till I forget for a moment that I am poor and forlorn and wretched. "HIDE A STICK, IN A LITTLE IN a remote village of North Somersetshire, Overshadowed by the venerable yew which stretches its giant limbs over the churchyard wall, stands a cottage with low-arched door of knotted oak, worm-eaten now, and rugged with age. Tradition says that it once formed, together with the adjoining cottage, the parsonage of the parish priest, while yet the stone altar in the church bore the sacrifice of the Host, and ere the statues of the Virgin and the saints gave place to monumental records of the virtues of departed squires. : The door is thrown half open, and the merry tinkle of children's laughter is heard within. Laugh on, little ones, nor dream of coming sorrows; for father's wages are poor at his labour in draining the salt-marsh by the sea; his seven shillings per week must be eked out by the premature labour of his children, and when his boy is seven years old, he must leave the village school to lead the horses at the plough it makes one tremble to see the child at such dangerous work. And the girl, when the winter has come, must enter on her lonely watch in some distant field, new sown with wheat, of which the rooks would not leave a seed but for her guardianship. There -sheltering from the keenness of the wintry blast within the little hut of hurdles and straw which father has erected against the hedge bank, thawing her chilled hands and feet at a flickering fire of green sticks which the wind or the rain continually extinguishesday after day, even Sunday too, the winter through, from dawn to dusk, poor Sarah may be seen, ever and anon pursuing the bold blackfeathered thieves, and raising the strange bird-like cry, "Oo, whu, oo whu oo," with which she frights them from their rapine, and sinking at every step ankle-deep in the soft ploughed red earth, wet and draggled: her sole relief is her youngest brother's advent at noon, bringing a basin filled with hot potatoes, surmounted by a small piece of bacon. But it is autumn now, and these cheerless days are not yet. Let us enter this cottage, and see its earthen floor, with the luxury of rude paving-stones around its margin; and its antique settle, made so that its back turns down and serves as a great table, whereon mother kneads the dough for the week's bread, while the youngsters entreat her for their portion, which, moulded by their tiny hands into rude likenesses of the human shape with currant eyes, finds its place in the oven, to come out shrivelled and scorched, but not to be eaten with the less gusto by its enthusiastic bakers. But now mother is out for the day, gathering sticks in the wood, or digging potatoes, for a pittance from some small farmer, and she has instructed little Sarah to brush and dust the house in her absence. The temptation to a game is great; and the proposition being made by Harry, Sarah yields the point of duty, casts away her brush, and joins in the roistering. "What shall we play at?" "Hide a stick" is Harry's suggestion. Forthwith a little piece of broken twig is chosen from the heaped-up provision of the woodhouse. Harry is to secrete it, and sister and brother betake themselves upstairs meanwhile. Now, Harry of the bright black eyes, where will thy wit instruct thee to hide it, to put at fault the keen hunters who are waiting upstairs? Harry looks around. There? no! In the table-drawer? no! and a dozen other places are thought of and rejected. Under the settle? yes! and Harry explores the advantages of the situation. Here are a pair of old soil-covered shoes, cast underneath as rubbish; deep in the toe of one of them he shoves the little twig, and then, flinging himself on the settle, rings out his merry shout, "Hide a stick, hide a stick, in a little hoyle (hole)." A clatter of little feet down the stairs, and a rush in opposite directions. "Cold, cold," cries Harry, enjoying the fun. They remove their search to other spots, little Dickey eagerly peering into every probable and improbable crevice, only to be still assured by his elder brother of his chilliness. Meanwhile Sarah perceives traces of disturbance about the settle foot. Instantly all the odd accumulation of goose-wing duster, pieces of broken crockery, strayed potatoes and onions, scraps of dried ferns, and old shoes are whisked out, and into the toe of one shoe dives her pretty hand, without result, and now into the other. Eureka! "I have found it," she cries; and Harry's triumph is over. There is happy banter over the discovery. "Ah, Harry, you thought I should not find it there. It's my turn to hide it now, and we will see if you can find it where I put it." The play goes on; all forgetful of time they carry it on, till the village clock striking five reminds Sarah that its next stroke will herald mother's return, all tired and hungry, from her labour. Fresh sticks are heaped on the hearth fire, and Harry is set to blow up its expiring embers, while Sarah busily engages in the work of brushing and tidying, and name the wild days when the clan with the " nameless by day" was at once the terror and protection of the country. Every child knows the story of the feuds between the M'Larens and the M'Gregors, and how the Stewarts of Appin, coming to help their kinsmen, were met by the clansmen at the clachan, where Rob Roy challenged any one of Appin to single combat, eager, by ever such personal hazard, to avert the horrors of a battle. They will tell you, too, how the great Duke of Athol exhausted his time and patience trying to catch Rob Roy; and the story of the funeral, when Lady Glenfalloch, thinking her brother was slain, sprang upon the Duke and, dragging him from his horse, gave him such a taste of the tenderness of the M'Gregors that he took timely warning and retired, leaving Rob to bury his mother in peace and quiet. Some ten years ago a descendant of Rob Roy's, Helen M'Gregor, was the beauty of Balquhidder. Helen was a fair, blue-eyed, golden-haired lassie, with whom life had been one long laugh, and to whom the world seemed to bear neither frowns nor clouds. Her father, Tam M'Gregor, was a farmer, and well-to-do for his station; his sons helped him on the hills, and Helen was a tidy hand in the house, quite able to take many cares from her mother's shoulders. Their cottage stood away from the clachan, near the foot of Meal-mach. A lovely little steading it was too, with high grey rocks on one side, on the other an oak and birch wood, among the branches of which the soft summer breezes, when they had kissed the lake into a ripple of delight, would sigh, and whisper their pleasant songs of brighter and warmer lands. one of Tam's cottage had served the wants of many a generation of M'Gregors, here a little and there a little being added, as the owner's family increased or his fortunes prospered. The thatch was matted together by a flourishing growth of various plants, wallflowers and house-leek predominating. Roses and honeysuckle flourished in the narrow border, and, clustering round the windows, met gay and thriving geraniums, votive offerings from the gardener at Glenbuckie, who was Helen's many admirers. Helen, being fancyfree herself, was wont to make a joke about love; and not caring for either fairs or gatherings, escaped much of the gossip which attaches to other girls. Yet, quietly as the little maiden lived, she could no more avoid lovers than can the violet hide away her treasures from the bee. "Love will venture in whar he darna weel be seen," and accordingly Helen's lovers were neither few nor slack in making their way to the farm; while, much to the girl's discomfort, her mother took pride to herself in counting the stalwart, well-to-do lads who would take a place by the ingle nook, and while talking to the farmer of the ewes, wool, and markets, would hope to catch a stray glance, kinder than usual, from Helen; who, however, went on with her spinning as if no eyes were seeking hers, and there were no such thing as love or wooing. And many a lad doubtless thought with Hobbie Elliott, that " whirling a bit stick wi' a thread trailing to it" was but poor and tiresome work. One man came oftener than the rest, so often that it was whispered about that Helen and Duncan were courting, nor did Duncan attempt to deny what he wished in his inmost heart was true. He had loved Helen long, and had only waited for a farm to enter the lists openly. Now he had a farm and decent house to take a wife to, he thought the right time had come; and soon, seeing he had the goodwill of both father and mother, he was content to wait patiently until some happy day when Maggie's heart would waken up and his love meet its reward. And if Duncan was patient, it was because, never having doubted his success, he experienced a sort of gratification in beating down his passion, or anticipating from a distance the time when Helen would spin by his own hearth, and pay him back tenfold for what she made him suffer now. The honest folk in Balquhidder called Helen a lucky lassie, and watched the courting with general interest, not unmixed with envy, for Duncan was one of the handsomest and steadiest of the young men; more than that, and what perhaps went even further among the girls, Duncan was the champion wrestler, runner, and hammer-thrower, and twice had he carried off prizes from the Braemar Gathering. Duncan's courting had made no further impression upon Helen when the Gathering of 185- drew on. All the world went to Braemar that year, and Duncan, much to his own surprise and the indignation of the Balquhidder people, was beaten both in wrestling and throwing by a newcomer, a young man who, by his superior style of dress and manner of speech, was evidently from a different part of the country, if not indeed of a different rank in life to that of the irate young Highlander; and when standing hot and angry after his last failure, he was by no means comforted by seeing Helen's cheeks redden before the glances of the victor, who, cap in hand, introduced himself to Tam M'Gregor as the son of his old friend, Niel Lesley, and saying that he had come to the Gathering on his way to Balquhidder, his father having told him of the sheep-farming there, and how, for auld acquaintance' sake, he might be lucky enough to get his lesson in the management of flocks from Tam himself, a lesson he meant to put in practice as a farmer in Australia. Tam was pleased to find his friend had not forgotten him, nor was he proof against the compliment neatly offered to his farming skill. Moreover there is never a lack of hospitality among the Celts, and Tam made his young friend welcome to the best his house afforded so long as he liked to stay. tall Niel was a fair-haired, blue-eyed man, and light-limbed, but with the muscles and sinews of a prize-fighter. He had been at the High School in Edinburgh, was well-up in modern topics, and able to hold forth upon subjects which rarely reached the ears of the inhabitants of the Braes, except when the shooting season brought down the great folk, and the great folk brought their servants; then politics, parliaments, and the court were familiarly discussed in every shieling. Niel was no idler, either in work, or play, or love. Everthing he set his hand to he did in the manner, we are told, is sure to succeed. So no wonder that, falling in love, as he did at once, he roused what poor Duncan had watched and waited for in vain; and, waking up the sleeping heart, brought the love-light into the sweet hazel eyes, that softened and drooped now as they had never done before any man's gaze. There was no question of love speech between the two, and yet, before the summer came, Helen had found out what a different place love could make the world. There had never been such heather on the hills, or bracken and wild roses on the braes, as now bloomed: the lovefilter was acting, and nature took tone, as it always does, from the heart. "How bonnie you're growing, Nelly," said Tam one day, as Helen came running up the grass, her hair escaping from the sky-blue snood, the gay cotton short gown coming halfway down the striped linsey petticoat, which was just short enough to show her neatly-clad feet and shapely ankles, coquettishly arrayed in bright stockings, with elaborately-embroidered clocks. "What's come to the lassie, wife? She's breakin' the hearts o' half the lads in the place. There's Duncan, puir lad, fient a smile he'll gie now, but gangs as dour-" "Wheesht, faither!" cried Helen, shutting his mouth with a rosy little palm. "Here's Duncan comin'." As she spoke Duncan stalked up to the door. It was easy to see that something had |